


The High School Effect

by MagicMage



Series: Joshua Shepard [10]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Retelling, non-canon Shepard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-02-26 09:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2646428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicMage/pseuds/MagicMage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by a request on tumblr for High School AU Mshenko's first meeting.</p><p>Kaidan Alenko has heard very little about Joshua Shepard in his time at school. They say he's a bad boy, that he's been hanging around with the wrong crowd after the tragic loss of his family several years ago. But, after a chance meeting with Mr. Anderson, one of the school's most well known, but strict, teachers, apparently he's turned it all around. Kaidan is surprised to find out that there's a lot more to him than meets the eye.</p><p>(This story has been put on hold)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Meetings

**Author's Note:**

> Lol I'm so good at titles.
> 
> Requested, again, by [mister-vega](http://mister-vega.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.
> 
> I hope this is okay! I don't know what it's going to become, but here it is.

Joshua Shepard.

It was a name that he’d heard called out in class a few times over his years in high school, but a name that had almost never been replied to. Teachers, eventually, had just seen the name, sighed exasperatedly, and continued on with their way down the attendance list.

Now, however, he was apparently some sort of prodigy whom their school was immensely proud of.

He’d heard the story, that Mr. Anderson had caught him behind the gym smoking pot (or doing crack, or taking meth, the stories seemed to get wilder and wilder) with the ‘wrong kind of students’ and that he’d told him to whip himself into shape or he’d be reporting him to Principal Hackett.

Apparently the next day he’d shown up to school, challenged every course which he’d failed in the first two years of his high school career and either aced or almost aced every one of them.

They said that he didn’t have any parents, that they’d died in a breaking and entering gone wrong which he vaguely remembered seeing on the news when he was quite a bit younger. The family having returned home from an outing of some sort to thieves in their family home. The thieves had panicked and had ended up shooting both of his parents.

The community had been really fired up about it for several weeks, and then the story had fallen into obscurity. Apparently so had Joshua Shepard.

So he wasn’t that surprised to see fluffy black hair and stark purple eyes walk into his math classroom on the first day of second semester. Wearing old jeans with a hole in the knee and a patch on the left buttock, the cuffs torn to shreds, and a white t-shirt which had been washed so many times that it was thin and clearly not white anymore. The only thing he wore which wasn’t falling apart was his signature leather jacket, which they said had belonged to his father.

 _They_ certainly did a lot of talking, not that anyone quite knew who _they_ was.

He was surprised when he sat beside _him_ , dressed in a button down white shirt and black trousers. His mother always told him to dress for success, so naturally she dressed him like a giant geek. No one really liked him. He spent a great deal of time studying and didn’t have very many friends because of it.

Other kids in the class called his name as he sat down.

“Pssh, don’t sit there Shepard, sit with us!”

“Oh my god why are you sitting next to _Kaidan_? Sit over here Shepard!”

One kid, a kid named Joker who somehow maintained a surplus of popularity while simultaneously being the biggest gamer at the school, came up and gave him a high five.

“Good to see you actually knew where the classroom was Shepard,” he joked, glancing over at him with a disapproving look for a short moment. “Why don’t you come sit with me? I’ve got my laptop, just loaded the new Blasto game onto it.”

“Nah,” Shepard said, leaning back in his chair with his arms behind his head and stretching like a big cat. “I’m good here, I like it.”

Joker snorted. “Yeah, _okay_.” And headed back to his chair.

Kaidan tried to focus on reading the first chapter in the textbook, trying to get an edge on the class. He, unlike certain seat neighbours of his, actually had to work _hard_ to pass.

He tried to concentrate for several minutes, but he could feel eyes burning into the side of his head, and looked up to see Shepard looking at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Uh…hi,” he said, trying to smile at him, but having it only half worked. There was something intimidating about having those eyes on him, they were bright, and the messy black hair just made them pop out more. Instead of just making fun of him, or snubbing him completely, Shepard smiled at him, the sheer sincerity behind it a jarring comparison to his outer appearance.

“Hey,” Shepard replied, in a low voice. “This _is_ Anderson’s math class right?”

Kaidan raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if he’d actually been concerned that he was in the wrong room. “Yeah, Mr. Anderson’s both math, and science and technology 11,” he told him.

“Oh, awesome, thanks.” Shepard nodded at him and looked up at the blackboard, which was still empty because the teacher hadn’t arrived yet. Then, like he realised he’d forgotten something, he swung back to him with his hand outstretched, turning completely in his chair to face him. “I’m Joshua Shepard.”

Kaidan took his hand and shook it, noting how strong Shepard’s grip was. “Kaidan Alenko.”

“Cool, well, I guess we’re seat buddies now,” Shepard told him, spinning back into his seat.

“Well, it’s not like there’s assigned seating or any—“

“Seat buddies,” Shepard repeated, pointing at him with one hand, shaped like a gun with one finger pointing, and winking.

“Okay,” Kaidan shrugged, as Shepard went back to staring blankly at the blackboard. He looked back down at his textbook and started reading again. He’d never met Joshua Shepard before now, he’d always been more of a mystery, someone he probably didn’t want to associate with because teachers were just exhausted with him.

He made it half way through the page when Shepard suddenly asked, “Could I borrow a pen? …And also some paper?”

Said question came so out of nowhere, that he jumped slightly, before looking up at Shepard in confusion, then processing the question and tossing Shepard a pen from his pencil case and handing him several sheets of paper. Shepard caught the pen deftly and then set the paper on his desk before saluting him sloppily with the pen.

“Thanks,” he said, as Mr. Anderson came into the classroom.

Kaidan, at that moment, noticed that Shepard didn’t even have so much as a backpack on him, and wondered how on earth he thought he was going to pass school if he didn’t have any supplies.

But Mr. Anderson was calling the class to order, the various groups of students who had been chatting amongst themselves dispersing into actual seats and settling in for class. Mr. Anderson came to Shepard’s desk and dropped a textbook on it, looking over him mildly.

“Good to see you in class, Shepard,” he said, just loud enough that Kaidan could only just hear it.

“Yeah, good to be here…” Shepard agreed softly.

-o-

So, naturally, Shepard was some kind of crazy genius. He’d expected some intelligence, he’d managed to somehow pass two years of school without ever studying or showing up for any of the classes, but he hadn’t expected every question that Anderson asked to be answered by him without any problem whatsoever.

He’d noticed how he seemed to wait for no one to answer, and then get really excited to the point where he was practically bouncing in his seat to answer.

Mr. Anderson had called on him almost every time, always looking like a proud father.

Kaidan envied Shepard’s learning ability, sighing softly at the end of class and stuffing the textbook into his backpack. He’d need to study for a few hours to make sure he could pass the first test, which would be at the end of the second week. Nothing like getting right into the thick of things instead of easing into them.

A pen appeared in his peripheral vision, he looked up to see the pen which he’d lent Shepard, in Shepard’s hand. He was standing over his desk, Kaidan didn’t even know when he’d gotten up.

“I know I said I’d be borrowing the paper, but I used it…uh sorry…” Shepard shrugged slightly and Kaidan shrugged one shoulder back at him.

“No problem,” he replied, retrieving his pencil and tossing it into his bag, as well as the rest of his school supplies.

For a moment Shepard just stood hovering over his desk, and then leaned slightly to one side, stuck his hands in his pockets, and wandered off down the row of desks. Kaidan looked up, wondering if he’d snubbed him somehow, and then went back to sorting through his mess of a backpack.

Hoisting his backpack onto his shoulder, he headed out of the class and into the hallway. Just like every other day it was crowded and too many people were standing in groups and chatting rather than actually using it what it was for, walking through. Even though the next fifteen minutes were supposed to be used for homeroom they weren’t in a hurry to get there.

No, he was probably the only person who was ever in a hurry to get from one class to another. Everyone else had no problem slinking in late. He, however, showed up at the door to his homeroom class…second?

He frowned at the student who was already sitting at, well on, his desk in the classroom. _This_ classroom just so happened to be Mr. Anderson’s as well, math classes were just all given in the same room. The student who had somehow beaten him to the classroom, unusual enough, turned around and…oh it was Shepard again.

The youth gave him an enthusiastic wave and grinned at him. “Hey it’s you again! Kaidan! Pull up a chair or…a desk. No, you seem like more of a chair type guy.”

Kaidan raised an eyebrow at him, entering the classroom and dropping his backpack into the chair of the desk beside Shepard and sitting in the desk. Shepard’s grin, which had fallen slightly when he’d decided Kaidan was a ‘chair type guy’ quirked up again at the sides.

“Versatile, nice.” Shepard nodded, glancing over at the open door he’d just come through and then over at the second door at the front of the class.

“We have ten minutes between classes,” Kaidan told him mildly, resting his feet in the chair in front of his desk. He was mildly aware that he was now taking up a desk and a half, whereas Shepard was only technically taking up one.

“Oh.” Shepard frowned.

“You…didn’t know?” Kaidan asked, glancing over at him with an incredulous look.

“Uh…nope.” Shepard shrugged.

“Didn’t you get a schedule with all of your classes on it?” Kaidan probed, leaning forward and catching Shepard’s wandering gaze and getting a smile from him.

“Yeah, I did get that. But that was back in December and I lost the sheet of paper.”

“You could always check online, on the school website,” Kaidan told him.

Shepard shrugged again, but it was more of an ‘I’m writing this off’ shrug than a laid back one like the one he’d given before. The smile on his face faltered slightly, his lips pulling at the side. “Don’t have one.”

Oops, he’d forgotten about that possibility. He frowned, realising that Shepard had said he’d lost the sheet in December and that it was now the first week of February. “So…how did you find the math class this morning?”

“Oh, that? I looked at the sheet until I remembered what rooms the classes were in, because I usually lose stuff.”

Kaidan gaped at him, part surprised and part confused. He wasn’t sure how long Shepard had been looking at said sheet, but the fact that he remembered the room numbers from two months ago just gave him one more thing to envy him for. He was apparently intelligent, the teachers liked him, and the students…well…

Joker wandered in with his giant laptop bag and sat on the desk in front of Shepard’s, dropping his bag in the chair behind him and sharing his leg space on the chair that Shepard’s were occupying. He didn’t even spare Kaidan a second glance.

“Mr. Anderson’s _brutal,_ ” he complained. “Homework on the first day?”

“That’s not normal I take it?” Shepard asked, leaning back into his arms on the desk and frowning thoughtfully.

“Hell no, he’s a slave driver!”

A few other students were wandering in now.

A girl named Liara who was in grade 10, who was absolutely gorgeous even with her hair so short in a pixie cut. She had freckles on her face, and she was almost always smiling. Kaidan really liked her. She was so good at math and science that she’d skipped a grade, and he’d heard a rumour that those were the only classes she was taking this semester. All of them were advanced university prep classes.

A large grade 12 student, who everyone insisted was actually about 24, named Wrex who was the star of the rugby team.  He was huge, he was probably more muscle than person. His head looked a bit small because of how muscled he was.

Garrus, a student in the same grade as they were who only seemed to turn up to classes because he didn’t have anything else to do with his time. He drove a motorbike that no one was sure whether he was allowed to own or not, but no one wanted to tell him off for it. He wandered past and gave Shepard a nod.

Some kid named Jenkins who was too thin and too tall at the same time and was far too excited about _everything_. Kaidan didn’t even know what grade he was in, he’d just suddenly started attending the school the year before and everyone tolerated him.

Several other students who Kaidan didn’t know or care about filtered in as Joker and Shepard conversed beside him. He sighed, suddenly feeling like he was taking up way too much space and getting off of the desk so that he could sit in it properly.

He didn’t notice how Shepard noticed.

Mr. Anderson had just walked in with a teacher named Mr. Kryik, Nihlus Kryik, when Joker exclaimed, “Ugh! And don’t even get me _started_ on Mr. “Cry”-ick.”

Mr. Anderson cleared his throat loudly, to which Joker turned around and saw the mistake he’d made. He shrugged. Kaidan shook his head amongst the chorus of chuckles and giggles from around the room.

Joker, clearly unfazed, just turned around on his desk and rested chin in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees.

He almost saw Mr. Anderson roll his eyes, but then he just turned to Mr. Kryik and shrugged. The strict faced man shrugged as well and left. He distinctly heard Joker mutter, “ugh, gives me the creeps,” back at Shepard, who just frowned thoughtfully again.

And then homeroom started, not that homeroom really had a purpose. All they ever did was listen to the announcements from Principal Hackett and take attendance. As usual Mr. Anderson got sick of them pretty quickly and let them leave the class a few minutes before the bell actually rang. The other classes often complained that Mr. Anderson’s homeroom class got 5 more minutes of their whole 15 minute ‘break time’ between blocks one and two.

Kaidan had taken out his math book while the announcements were being read and had been reading over their first module when they’d been dismissed. He’d been distracted, yet again by Shepard trying to hold a conversation with him while others were also trying to hold a conversation with Shepard and not wanted to include him. He didn’t realise until he was halfway down the stairs to his next class that he’d forgotten his math book in the classroom.

He sighed exasperatedly, turning right around and almost knocking into someone. He apologised, to which the person groaned angrily, and headed back up to the classroom. When he got there Mr. Anderson was sitting at his desk at the back of the room, with Shepard standing in front of it. His back was to him, but it looked like he was holding something.

A glance at his desk told him his book wasn’t there.

“Ah, there he is,” Mr. Anderson told Shepard, gesturing to him with his chin. Shepard turned around. He wasn’t just holding the textbook, but also a backpack which looked like it was full. He was wearing that big grin again.

“Hey Shepard…whose bag?” Kaidan asked, approaching the desk and taking the textbook when it was extended to him.

“Oh, this?” Shepard asked, lifting the bag slightly. “Anderson,” Anderson cleared his throat, “ _Mr._ Anderson gave it to me.”

Kaidan looked over at Mr. Anderson, who settled him with a very serious ‘you will tell no one’ look and realised Shepard probably didn’t have enough for school supplies of his own. It made all the supplies in his own bag, and the bag itself feel heavier. His parents bought him _everything_.

“Oh…well, that’s good,” Kaidan said awkwardly, turning back to Shepard who was _still_ grinning at him.

“Cool so…what’s your next class?” Shepard asked, holding up a sheet of paper. “Ande- _Mr._ Anderson printed me my schedule again.”

“Don’t lose it this time,” Mr. Anderson scolded him gently, there was really no heat behind it.

“English,” Kaidan said, hoping sincerely he hadn’t interrupted but he _really_ wanted to get to his next class.

“Oh, me too,” Shepard replied, looking at the sheet. “Shit, I _hate_ English.”

“ _Joshua_.”

“Uh… _shoot._ I hate English,” he repeated, glancing over at Mr. Anderson uncertainly until he nodded, then that grin was turned on him again. He’d never heard Mr. Anderson use anyone’s first name before, or anyone call Shepard by his first name. “Want to show me where it is?”

“Do you know where anything is?” Kaidan asked.

Shepard chuckled, swinging the backpack onto his shoulder and shrugging. “I’ve been registered here for two years and I have _no idea_ where anything is.”

“Alenko, would you give him a quick tour? He _skipped_ the tour which was meant for grade 9 students.” Mr. Anderson fixed him with a look that said he couldn’t really say no.

Kaidan looked over at Shepard, who was looking at him eagerly, and then back at Mr. Anderson who was looking at him expectantly. “Yeah, okay.”

Shepard threw an exuberant look at Mr. Anderson and then looked back at him. “Awesome, let’s go then!”

“Right now?” Kaidan asked.

“Yeah, why not?”

Because he wanted to look at the English course outline that was ‘why not’.

He shrugged. “Let’s go,” he said. Mr. Anderson smiled at him, at least he thought he did, his eyes crinkled slightly at the sides. He _felt_ like Mr. Anderson appreciated it.

So he led Shepard out of the classroom, deciding that if he was going to waste his break touring around a school he already knew like the back of his hand he’d do it right. Besides, Shepard seemed really excited about it for some reason.


	2. Shit Hits the Fan

Joshua had never been interested in school. It had always bored him, and he’d taken to trying to snub his foster parents with it once he had realised what assholes they were. When he’d gained emancipation from them a year ago he’d been unable to shake the habit of not giving a damn about school.

At least until Anderson had caught him with a bunch of pretty well known ‘gang type people’ behind the gym. He’d honestly just been talking to them, bored and with nothing to do before his part time job. They’d been the ones smoking pot, but the man had read _him_ the riot act…and then taken him out to lunch.

Most teachers had just told him he was a bad kid, or a waste of space, before going on their way and paying him no more notice. He’d never actually had an adult pay him attention before, they were always in such a hurry to write him off, or move him along. Making false promises to ‘make everything better’ and then forgetting about him until he slipped into obscurity and then having the audacity to ask _him_ what had happened.

He was still surprised that Anderson had followed up on every promise that he’d made. There was probably no one he respected more, so it had just made sense to him to prove that his assertion that “you’re a bright young kid” was right the next day. And had he ever. He wasn’t stupid, quite the opposite, but he was _so_ bored.

“I told you,” Anderson had said to him after the school board had met to try and figure out how he’d cheated and been unable to prove it.

Sometimes he still wondered how he’d managed to keep friends in the school. Some people thought he was terrifying, having heard some completely incorrect stories about him, and others thought he was cool, but didn’t seem to get that he really _was not that cool_. He was just a guy.

But, he thought as he rolled over in bed ten minutes before his alarm clock was supposed to go off, wouldn’t it be nice if that Kaidan Alenko kid thought he was cool? He seemed to be torn between being completely uninterested in him and a little bit afraid of him.

When he’d seen him the first time, when he’d walked into class having no idea if he was in the wrong room, part of him had wondered how he’d never noticed him before. He had adorably almost curly hair, and really pretty honey brown eyes and…was he allowed to call a dude’s eyes pretty? He was just really…cute? With how he seemed desperate to get to each class, always pulling out his textbook and reading it like he didn’t quite get it.

When Joker had demanded to know why he kept following him around the halls ‘like a puppy’ he’d only been able to answer that he was trying to make new friends. With one person. And also he was a really cute person, well he didn’t say that part out loud.

He was doomed.

His alarm clock started ringing and he flinched slightly. He always ended up waking up before it, anticipating it going off and watching it for the next half hour instead of sleeping. As he shut it off and swung his legs over the edge of his tiny, hard, single bed he sighed. Waking up for school sucked.

It didn’t matter if he’d already been awake, or if he had a reason to want to go to school, as soon as the alarm clock rang he felt this heaviness because he just _didn’t_ want to go. But Joshua Shepard didn’t let people who believed in him down, and he’d been to school every day for the past month despite what other teachers had expected.

So he hauled his ass out of bed and pulled on his old shirt, old jeans, and his very old, but much better cared for, leather jacket. Sometimes he wondered why other kids didn’t judge him for dressing like a man in his fifties who had given up on his wardrobe, but he was pretty sure most of them were too afraid of him to judge him.

He really didn’t like that.

But, rather than worrying about whether the people who called themselves his friends were actually afraid of him he slipped on his running shoes, and left the house without breakfast so that he could go for his quick morning run. Something about running made him feel free, like if he ran fast enough all of his problems would be so far behind him that they’d never catch up.

-o-

Something wasn’t quite right when he got into math that morning. For one, there was a _girl_ sitting in his desk, a girl he’d never seen before. She had her hair pulled into a bun and Kaidan was _talking_ to her, with interest, like he actually wanted to talk to her instead of just putting up his with silly tag-a-long puppy self.

He frowned, pausing conspicuously at the front of the room with his bag hanging over his shoulder. When Kaidan didn’t even look up he pressed his lips together and glanced around the room to find a new spot.

For two, Joker came up beside him and asked, “Hey man, have you seen Jenkins recently?”

He looked over at his friend, who was carrying his way oversized bag as usual. Joshua had no idea how he managed to carry it, yet also have every single allergy and a ‘get out of gym free’ card because he might hurt himself.

“No?” He looked around the room, even though Jenkin’s wasn’t even in his class.

“Apparently he stopped showing up for school a few days ago, and he was acting _weird_ before that, like paranoid ‘woo’ weird,” Joker told him. Joshua tilted his head slightly, frown still on his face, and tried to remember when the last time was that he’d seen the overly excitable kid. “Hey, who’s the chick who’s usurped your desk?”

“I don’t know,” Joshua told him, snapped back from his thoughts so he could frown slightly at the girl, who noticed him looking and waved. Kaidan looked up as well, seemingly surprised he was standing there, his brows raising just a bit as he glanced between the occupied desk and him. When Kaidan just shrugged at him and went back to talking to the girl Joshua felt his stomach clench a bit.

He hadn’t even considered the possibility that Kaidan wasn’t at all interested in him, like, at all.

“Did you just get snubbed by the least popular person in school?” Joker asked.

Joshua turned and punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Shut up man, it’s not like that.”

Joker yelped dramatically and rubbed his arm. “You almost broke my arm!” he whined. Joshua rolled his eyes. Joker sniggered at him, patting him on the shoulder with the arm he’d ‘almost broken’, as he said, “Don’t worry, bring your bruised ego over to _my_ neck of the woods.”

Joshua followed after him, begrudgingly, and sat next to him at the back of the class. Joker pulled out his laptop and Joshua sighed at him.

“You know that Anderson _knows_ you’re gaming on that thing all through class right?” he asked, stretching to see what his background was of and seeing it was a scantily clad woman. His interest was immediately gone and he turned to tug his textbook and binder out of his bag.

“But Mr. _Anderson_ I need it because I’m bad at math, and my dad totally wrote me this note which says I can use it in class.” Joker mocked.

“Your dad didn’t write the note, did he?” Joshua asked, feigning interest without looking up.

“Duh,” Joker told him.

“Detention Mr. Moreau.”

Joshua just about jumped out of his skin as Anderson spoke from behind him, clearly Joker did as well because the sound of said laptop being slammed shut sounded from beside him.

“Shit!” Joker and Joshua swore at the same time.

“Would you like to join him, Shepard?” Anderson asked as Joshua looked up at him.

“No, uh, sorry sir,” he said, looking up at the man apologetically. “I was just surprised.”

No matter how stern he was being, Anderson always had this look of kindness in his eye that Joshua didn’t quite understand. He didn’t owe any of these bratty kids anything, and yet he was one of the best teachers at the school in terms of teaching _and_ giving a shit.

“Good.” Anderson turned to Joker, who was looking up at him sheepishly. “After school, and if I see that hunk of junk open again in my class I’ll confiscate it. Your grades have been dropping and I _know_ you’re good at math.”

“It’s _not_ a hunk of junk,” Joker protested, cradling the laptop against his chest like a baby.

Anderson shook his head slightly, Joshua noticed the amusement in his eyes. “Carry on you two,” he said, before continuing on his way to the front of the class.

“Man, the _one day_ that he enters from the back of class,” Joker whined. He turned to him with a scowl on his face. “And he’s got _you_ totally whipped.”

“I’m not whipped,” Joshua told him, shaking his head as he opened his binder and pulled out his pen.

“Uh, Joshua Shepard, showing up for classes, prepared, pulling out his pen before Mr. Dictator calls for attention? No, no, not whipped at all.” Joker shook his head as well, stuffing his laptop back into his bag. He tugged out his binder with a dramatic sigh. “I was almost level 50 in Galactic Fantasy…”

Joshua’s gaze, and attention, however, had gone back to Kaidan, who looked like he was having a good time talking to the new girl. He sighed, resting his head on his hand and trying desperately not to be too obvious that he was watching him. Maybe Kaidan just liked collecting ‘new kids’. He hadn’t paid him another glance since that dismissive shrug from before.

“Right, everyone sit down,” Anderson called from the front of class, leaning against the whiteboard with his arms crossed. “We have a new student.”

“No way!” someone called sarcastically.

Anderson snorted. “Yes, way. Her name is Ashley Williams and she’s transferred to Galaxia from district two-twelve.”

Joshua felt his stomach roll slightly. Ashley. He didn’t like that name, that name was so close to…No. He didn’t want to think about it.

“Why didn’t you say something when Shepard transferred in?”

“Because he didn’t transfer in, he _showed up_.”

Joshua snorted at that, getting a few eyes on him as well as the new girl’s. He grinned in reply. “What?” he asked brightly. He got a few grins back from the other students and look of interest from the new girl.

“Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get some work done. A new kid’s a new kid, no big deal,” Anderson continued, turning to start writing on the board so he could start the class.

Joshua decided he didn’t like this spot, definitely not paying attention to Anderson and his teaching or his explanations, because he was paying too much attention to Kaidan. He had just the right view, he could see his desk, the side of his face, and his back. He could watch as he watched Anderson and his lesson like a hawk and when he turned to say something to the new girl.

He was just about to start feeling jealous that Kaidan actually _said things_ to the new girl during class, when Anderson called on him. “Could you supply us with the answer to this, Shepard?” he asked.

“Uh, twenty-five?” he asked, before even looking up at the board. “Uh no, not twenty-five, E equals seventy-six,” he amended once he’d actually looked at the question.

Anderson raised an eyebrow at him, his gaze momentarily jumping to Kaidan for a moment before settling back on him. “Pay attention Shepard,” he grumbled at him, before continuing with, “Yes, E equals seventy-six, and the way you come to this answer is…”

“Dude, you can stop eye fucking the new girl _anytime_.” Joshua looked up in surprise at Joker, almost blurting out that he had _not_ in fact been eye fucking the new girl. “She’s good, but she’s not _that_ good,” Joker added.

“Shut up,” he grumbled, resting his head on his arms on his desk. He had _definitely_ not been eye fucking the new girl.

-o-

Joshua was all the more put out when Kaidan and ‘the new girl’ showed up to homeroom together. His first thought was _‘is she even in this class?’_ But then she led Kaidan over to where he was sitting on his usual desk and he found his frankly disgustingly jealous thoughts interrupted by her enthusiastic, “Hey, ‘names Ashley Williams,” as she held her hand out to him.

He took it and shook it before crossing his arms over his knees. “Joshua Shepard.”

“Yeah, I heard,” she said, her lips tugging up at the side. “The infamous Joshua Shepard.”

“No, not infamous,” he said affably.

Kaidan sat down beside him, like he normally did, and Ashley sat in front of Kaidan. She sat backwards on the desk, while Kaidan actually sat in his desk and looked between the two of them with mild interest.

“That’s not what I heard,” she told him, winking. “You’re like Anderson’s protégé or something, we even heard about how you challenged both grade nine and ten in district two-twelve.”

Joshua shrugged. “It was no big deal, really.” He ignored Kaidan’s quiet snort. “So, what brings you to Galaxia?”

 _And also how did you get Kaidan so interested in you in one class?_ He didn’t say that part.

“My school got shut down,” she explained, shrugging. “I just so happened to be the only one of the side of the line to be transferred here.”

“That sucks, it’s been happening a lot recently. What about your friends?”

Ashley sighed. “You know what they say, you always seem like you’re good friends until you’re not in anymore.”

“Shitty deal,” Joshua told her. She smiled at him.

“Kaidan here tells me you’re like a super genius or something,” she said. Joshua’s stomach flipped and he glanced at Kaidan, who shrugged. Kaidan had been talking about him.

“Not really, I just—“

“Hey, what’s up?” Joker, who had just entered the room, came between them, perching on the edge of the desk in front of Joshua and holding out his hand. “Joker, nice to meet you.”

“Ashley, nice to meet you too. But, uh, we were talking.”

“That’s nice. Joshua doesn’t care,” Joker told her, throwing a grin at him. “So, what bring you to Galaxia?”

Ashley rolled her eyes goodnaturedly and started her story over again.

Joshua didn’t care, he hadn’t really been invested in the conversation at all. He looked over at Kaidan, who was watching Joker and Ashley converse.

When Kaidan noticed he was looking he looked up at him with a half-smile. “Hey, sorry about this morning,” he told him. “Ash was totally lost on her way to class, so I decided to give her a hand.”

Joshua’s lips tugged down at the side of their own accord, but he reaffirmed the grin on his face. “No problem. I just sat with Joker.”

Kaidan chuckled. “I noticed.”

Joshua swallowed thickly as his stomach did its uncomfortable flip flop dance and looked up at the other students who were coming into the class finally.

“Hey.” Joker elbowed him in the ribs to get his attention. He looked up. “Ash says she’s played Galactic Fantasy before.”

“It was like _once_ ,” Ashley rushed to tell him.

Joshua shrugged. “I haven’t played it, but Joker says it’s great.”

“Joker also says that dating simulations with 2D girls are great,” Garrus, who had just entered and obviously started listening to their conversation, said from his other side.

“Yeah,” Joker said, looking over his shoulder. “Because they _are_ great,” he told him defensively.

Garrus snorted at him and then looked over at Ashley, over both of their heads because he was like 200 centimetres tall for some reason. “Garrus Vakarian, nice to see a new face around here.”

“Ashley Williams, all I’ve been seeing all day is new faces. Nice to meet you Vakarian.”

Garrus opened his mouth to reply, but Anderson came through the door and immediately called the students to order. “I have an announcement,” he said as he stood at the front of the class. Anderson never had announcements, everyone’s attention was caught instantly. “Richard Jenkins will no longer be attention Galaxia.”

“His name was _Richard?_ ” Joker asked, a few kids laughed.

“Quiet Joker, this is serious,” Anderson told him sternly. The room went silent again. “The reason given by his parents was “incessant bullying,” this is a serious matter. If anyone witnessed _anything_ that may help with this I urge you to step forward. This isn’t the first time in the past month that this has happened. The school is opening a formal investigation.”

Muttering rose up between the students in the class.

“Bullying?” Ashley asked, looking up at them. “Is that a big thing here?”

“Not that I know of,” Kaidan told her reassuringly. “Maybe we’ve got someone who transferred in and is trying to make a name for themselves.”

“I can’t believe we didn’t notice…” Joshua muttered, looking down at the floor with a troubled frown on his face.

“I wonder if I can get a list of recently transferred students,” Garrus muttered to himself, and then wandered off to speak to another student.

That was when the sirens started outside.

Everyone looked up towards the window, surprised by the sound of an ambulance coming into the parking lot.

“Attention Galaxia faculty, please meet in the staff room for an emergency meeting, students stay in your homeroom classes until further notice,” Principal Hackett called over the PA, sounding incredibly serious.

All eyes in the room turned to Anderson as the sound of the ambulance’s sirens went on in the background.

“Stay here,” Anderson told them, tone stern. No one was going to disobey after the sound of the sirens and Hackett’s announcement. He turned and left the room.

Several students, Joker and Ashley included, went over to the window to see what was going on. The window of their classroom gave a clear view of the parking lot.

Joshua watched from his desk, and Kaidan sat nervously beside him.

“What’s happening do you think?” Kaidan asked thoughtfully.

“I have no idea,” Joshua told him honestly.

The room was mostly silent, except those muttering by the window and those whispering to each other in their seats. Then Joker announced, “Holy shit they’re taking Mr. Kryik away in a stretcher!”

“Who’s Mr. Kryik?” he heard Ashley ask as he looked up out the window over the crowd’s heads.

“Like, the least popular teacher in school but, dude, what the hell happened?”

Joshua frowned and stood up. “I think we should all sit down,” he told the class. Several people from the window turned to look at him. “Wait until Ander… _Mr._ Anderson gets back, he’ll tell us what happened.”

A couple people apparently thought that was a good idea and moved to sit down.

He went over to the window and pulled the blinds down. “We shouldn’t stare, either,” he told the remaining watchers.

Joker glanced at the blinds that were closed in front of his face and then looked over at Joshua with a frown on his face. “I know I said I didn’t like him, but he looked _bad_.”

“Sit down Joker,” Joshua told him. Joker sighed softly and moved to go back to their seats. Joshua followed him, and the rest of the watchers dispersed.

Joshua gripped his hands together tightly while he sat on his desk, staring at the blinds which he’d closed.

What the hell was going on?


End file.
